#record stacks

[coolmomvinyl]

[audio-luddite]

Loose ends.

Here are some things I have mentioned, but should perhaps elaborated on.

STACKS

I mentioned in my last post I was playing a record set designed to be stacked.

I had a dual turntable 50 years ago that could hold up to 6 records and play them one by one. In ancient times this is how you did a playlist. So I decided to look around and yes they are available.

The downside is you will not find one that is good for the records. And it will sound less than great. It is cool to watch them go. A side finishes, the arm moves over and out of the way. The next disk drops and the arm moves into position and plays it. Repeat. The disks sit one top of one another and if you like to wipe dust off the record every time, well that aint possible. Also if you use a record weight to hold the record in place as I do, again impossible. Dirty records dropping on each other and they can slip. Like a multi-disk clutch.

Also if you are a tweak and care about cartridge alignment, well having ever taller stacks to play means it is never right. Its that quality / convenience inverse relationship thing.

It is cool that they were completely mechanical. Cams and levers and springs and even delicate push rods. Marvels of cleverness they were. They worked and can be made to work again. Dual and Garrard made some nice ones. Nice for a stacker at least.

Speaker Wires

A bit more blah blah on "good" speaker wires. The major variable for good speaker wires is straight resistance. Resistance is directly proportional to the cross sectional area of the wire. The output impedance of the amplifier defines its "damping factor" which indicates how well the amp can make the speaker do its bidding. That is a very low number. My franken-amp is specified as an 80 to one DF into an 8 Ohm load. That means its output impedance is 0.1 Ohms equivalent at 1000 Hz. If your wire has 0.3 Ohms of resistance it reduces the damping factor to 8/(0.3+0.1) = 20. That is probably audible. That is why low resistance wires (large gauge) are better.

In most cases as frequencies ascend the DF goes down. So its even more serious. The other factors such as inductance and capacitance are tiny compared to the values in the cross over network of the speaker.

There are other issues if the amplifier has exotic circuits that may oscillate. Whole other set of problems.

Audiophile index

I mentioned this index, but failed to link to it. So here it is.

Be very careful it is full of rabbit holes.

Daily Audiophile provides links to news, reviews, and articles related to high fidelity audio equipment. We choose the newest and most inter

OK that is all I can think of right now.